Some questions on your post:
>Take the North American auto industry, for example - an example of widely
>dispersed sourcing and production. Problem is, when workers down tools in
>a plant in Toledo, Ohio or St. Therese, Quebec the entire continental
>industry can grind to a halt rather than a single plant.
Is that the case? Or could the buyer/industry just turn to another supplier in the same or similar network? To what degree are links in these networks supplying just one plant?
>We need to look at these things dialectically. Within every phenomenon is
>the seed of its opposite. I'm not saying my point overrides the effect of
>global disaggregation, but it may limit the extent to which one can speak
>of "substantial reorganization of production."
OK, perhaps not a "substantial reorganization of production", but would you agree "disaggregation" is a substantial DIS-organization of the material/temporal basis for the kind of collective life experience that makes for labor solidarity, collective social action, etc.?
Tom
Tom Kruse / Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia Tel/Fax: (591-42) 48242 Email: tkruse at albatros.cnb.net